Starbucks CEO: I'm not running for president

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said he won’t be running for president but that someone who is “courageous enough to select a member of the other party as a running mate” should.

“Our country is in desperate need of servant leaders, of men and women willing to kneel and embrace those who are not like them,” Schultz wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times on Thursday. “Regardless of who wins the presidency, the odds of the same party controlling a filibuster-proof Senate are slim. If we want to turn the nation around, we have to act differently. Save for the most rabid partisans, most people don’t want one-party rule.”

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Schultz, who cited his childhood growing up in public housing in Brooklyn, said that for many Americans, the belief in being able to climb the career ladder has diminished.

“Millennials have never witnessed politics devoid of toxicity. Anxiety, not optimism, rules the day,” Schultz wrote. “While Americans have diverse views in what they want from Washington, I reject the notion that our divided and dysfunctional government is merely a reflection of what the political class calls the red-blue divide.”

Schultz said Starbucks had more to do as a public company to demonstrate good leadership, which is why he will not be running for president.

“Despite the encouragement of others, I have no intention of entering the presidential fray. I’m not done serving at Starbucks,” he wrote.

He compared speculation about him running for president to an experience of visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem with a widely respected Israeli rabbi a decade ago. The rabbi stopped 10 yards short of the wall, when Schultz asked why. He said, “You go. … I’m not worthy.”